Spur Giant: Soiled Dove

by Dirk Fletcher

  He gave up thinking about it. Let his subconscious work on it. He undressed, blew out the lamp and went to bed.

  The next morning he was at Judge Parker's courthouse by six o'clock. The six deputy marshals were talking when he walked up, but fell silent as soon as they saw him. One came forward.

  "McCoy, with the U.S.Secret Service?"

  "Right, and who are you?"

  "I'm U.S.Deputy Marshal Jules West. I'm head deputy on this little mission. We was getting ready to make a deep penetration of the Territory, but understand you need a sweep of the close by spots where your train robbers might be."

  "It's a chance I need to cover," Spur said shaking the man's hand. "I understand you men get two dollars a head for every felon you bring back. If we can bring these three wanted men back, there's a hundred dollar bonus for you boys. I know you don't get paid much, so if we can connect, this will make it worth your time."

  West grinned. "Oh, yeah, that sounds damn good. The boys will appreciate it. We'll work extra hard. What's the odds they're out there?"

  "Can't figure it. Don't know these people. But I think the robbery and everything that's behind it and goes with it are all centered right here in Fort Smith somehow. Just how I haven't worked out yet. I brought a sack of grub. Figured we'd be cooking out."

  "You're right there. We can't afford the prices they charge for food out there in the Territories. Most of the outlaws have more money than they know what to do with."

  "Until you catch them," Spur said.

  West grinned. "Yeah, until we nail them to the wall of some log fort in the willies out there." West looked at the others. "Everyone ready? Get the wagon moving and we'll get underway. Don't want to miss the first run on the ferry."

  Ten minutes later they waited at the banks of the Arkansas river. It was wider than Spur had guessed. A horse pulled ferry on a rope made the trip from one side to the other. The rope went through some pulleys on the boat and stretched out from one side to the other.

  A horse on one side pulled it across to the other bank. On the return trip a horse on this side pulled it back. The flat bottomed boat was big enough to take the wagon and seven horses and men on one trip.

  They headed into the Territories that looked exactly like the country on the other side of the river. The big difference was no town, no farms or ranches that he could see.

  Spur had heard about Judge Isaac Parker and his work there at Fort Smith. The judge had been appointed by the President and approved by Congress back in 1875. The Federal court in Fort Smith had been a total shambles from inexperience, graft and neglect.

  Judge Parker was 36 years old when appointed. He had already been a city attorney in St. Joseph, Missouri, a worker for President Lincoln's election, a judge in a backwoods district in Missouri, and a two-term representative in the U.S.Congress in Washington. He served on the House Committee on Indian affairs and was known as a friend of the Indian. He was also a devout and hard line Methodist with a strict moral code.

  The first eight weeks on the bench at Fort Smith, Judge Parker tried 91 defendants. Of the 18 men charged with murder, 15 were convicted. One of the convicted men was killed trying to escape, eight were given long prison terms and six were condemned to hang.

  A large new gallows had been built on the courthouse land that had one long trap that could drop 12 men to their deaths at one time.

  On his first hanging, six men were dropped into hell by the master hangman, George Haledon. More than 5,000 men, women and children jammed the fort compound to see the first of many public hangings that would make Fort Smith and Judge Parker famous.

  Congress had authorized Judge Parker to have his U.S.Marshal-also appointed by the President-hire up to 200 U.S.Deputy Marshals to fan out through Indian Territory and bring in any felons they found.

  These marshals didn't need a warrant for an arrest. They could bring back anyone they even suspected of a serious crime. They also brought back witnesses to testify at the trial.

  The marshals received no salary. They were paid $2 for each felon brought back alive, but received nothing for a corpse unless there was a reward for the man dead or alive. Usually there was no such reward.

  Spur had been interested in the wagon that accompanied them. It was a mobile office, containing a jail for prisoners, a kitchen, arsenal and dormitory.

  Healthy prisoners were marched alongside the wagon at gunpoint. Wounded ones were allowed to ride inside, chained to the wagon.

  Spur heard that the marshals went in groups to protect themselves from gangs of outlaws in the Territories. It was Indian Territory and reserved for the Indian tribes that had been moved there. However, as many as 20,000 non-Indians were in and out of the area from time to time, hiding, farming, hunting, and suspicious of the U.S.Dep uty Marshals whether they were law violators or not.

  Spur rode up front with Marshal West. They had been on the trail for over four hours when the marshal pointed to smoke about a mile ahead.

  "That's One-Eyed Louie's place. He married an Indian and is living there legally. He's also the first stop for outlaws coming into the Territories in this section. A kind of rough and ready country inn."

  "Will he talk?"

  "Oh, yeah. Louie is so close to the court that he has to play like he's in both camps. He's on whoever's side is occupying his place at the time. You'll see."

  When they stopped in front of a log structure that looked as if it had grown year by year, a large man with a patch over one eye hurried out of the front door.

  "Deputy West. I'm honored you come to my poor inn."

  "Need to talk to you, Louie."

  "Come in, come in. We can talk over a shot of whiskey. The good stuff from the back room. Right this way, Deputy West."

  "Bringing along a friend, Louie. This is Untied States Secret Service Agent Spur McCoy. He's from Washington D.C. and he wants to ask you some questions."

  "Me?" Louie said. He was a bear of a man, with full beard, wild hair and wearing the tops to long underwear and a pair of much patched and washed jeans. "What do I know? Come, come, more than welcome."

  The rest of the marshals dismounted and sat around waiting.

  The inside of the inn was as rustic as the outside. Mortar of some kind had been used to plug up the holes between the logs cutting down on the wind whipping through.

  A rough plank bar sat on barrels at one side. Behind this section, dirty blankets covered the walls to cut down more of the cold winter winds.

  Louie set up shot glasses on the bar and filled them from a bottle of whiskey without any label on it. Spur sipped it and put it back on the bar.

  "Louie, I'm hunting three men and a women on horses. You see any group like that who rode in here during the past four or five days?"

  "Don't see many women out here. I remember a whore who decided to do some business on her own. She made a circuit of camps and inns and houses. Did right fine for a time. Then one old boy lassoed her, tied her to the bed and nobody ever saw her again. Lots of folks heard her screaming to get away. Figure she finally found a man who would take good care of her."

  "Bound to happen. But what about a woman and three men last four or five days? They been here, or past here?"

  "Can't rightly say."

  "You best say, Louie, or I'll thumb out that other eye of yours and you'll be blind for the rest of your damned life." Marshal West said it and Louie took a step back.

  "Well now, didn't know it was so all fired important."

  "Important enough for a twenty-dollar reward for the man who helps me catch them," Spur said.

  "Well now," Louie said, a gleam building in his dark eye.

  A gun butt slammed down on the makeshift bar. Marshal West turned the weapon around and angled it directly at Louie. "That's legitimate, correct, honest information we want out of you, Louie. No wild chases up into the hills. No fifty mile rides for no more good than hide and hair. You know anything straight, you say so. Otherwise you pour us another shot and
we'll be out of here."

  Louie thought for a minute, pulled at his beard and picked at his nose. Then he sighed.

  "Aw, hell, Marshal. I was just fun'in you. Never seen no four past here. Business been damn slow lately." He refilled the marshal's glass, looked at Spur's full one and shrugged.

  "Good, Louie. My job's to see that your business stays slow. Thanks for the shots, we'll be going." The marshal downed the rot-out-your-gut whiskey and headed for the door. He still had his six gun in his hand. Spur followed him.

  When the seven men mounted, Marshal West looked at a big man with a full beard and twin sixguns in his belt.

  "So, John?" he said.

  "Nobody left the back door, not like that other time when we was chasing that Boney guy."

  "No movement at all back there, right?" West pressed.

  "Damn right, nothing."

  "Wait for half an hour just past the bend out here and see if he sends anybody on a ride. If nothing after that time, catch up with us."

  They pulled back on the road and followed the slow progress of the heavy wagon along the muddy and narrow track through the open spaces and the small hills and deep brush and hardwood forest.

  Five miles up the track, Marshal West held up his hand and the whole procession stopped.

  "Smoke over yonder," he said. They saw smoke coming up through some trees that almost dispersed it but not quite.

  "Never been anybody over there before," one of the men behind him said.

  "Best we take a look," West said. "Could be nothing, then could be a still or such. Importing or making whiskey in the Territories is against the law."

  They left the wagon and rode toward the smoke keeping to the wooded sections of the small hills. When they were a quarter-of-a-mile away, they tied their horses and moved ahead on foot. Three of the men had rifles, the rest their hand guns. Spur went along.

  West bellied down a hundred-yards from the smoke source and Spur slid in beside him. They looked through some scrabble brush at a small clearing and a new cabin made of poles, not real logs. None of them were more than six-inches thick and there were cracks between them twoinches wide in lots of places.

  Smoke came out of a hole in the roof. Around the outside of the cabin was a pole fence with a six-foot wide gate. The structure itself was about 12-feet square, with a second story built toward the back of it.

  "Firing slots up in that second story," the marshall said.

  "Noticed that. Two in the first floor as well. One hip shot horse at the far side, but I don't see no humans."

  "Couldn't be Indians. They wouldn't do that much work on a place just so they could pick up and move. Got to be whites."

  "Outlaws?" Spur asked.

  The marshall nodded. "More than likely." He was quiet for a moment. "See that line of brush ahead? We can move up through that and get to twenty-five yards of the place. Find yourself a good thick tree to hide behind. I'll call out when we get up there. The others are moving in around the place close as the cover will allow."

  Ten minutes later both men were in place. Spur found a tree that looked like a sycamore and bellied down behind it. Marshal West looked at him and nodded, then turned to the cabin.

  "Yo, you in the log cabin. We're friendly, just want to say howdy. Anybody home?"

  A rifle shot sounded from inside the small fort and the round cut through the brush six-feet over Spur's head and ten-feet to the side.

  "Not a neighborly thing to do," West called. "We ain't aiming you no harm. Just stopped by to say howdy."

  Another rifle shot came, this one closer to where they lay.

  "Most friendly folks ride up and call out with their hands in plain sight," the voice inside said.

  "Not sure of who you are. This cabin is new. Warn't here three months ago."

  "True. Who you be?"

  "U.S.Deputy Marshal out of Fort Smith. You got any reason to be hiding?"

  "Not a bit," the voice said and a man in stiff pants, a long sleeved shirt and a sweater vest came out a side door. He carried a rifle but it pointed at the ground.

  "Lay the rifle down, friend, and we'll come out," West said.

  Just then a shot went off behind the cabin, then two more and a man cried out in pain.

  "Don't move or you're dead," West barked. The man with the rifle turned to look behind him, then slowly put the rifle on the ground.

  "You got no trouble with me, Marshal. I ain't wanted nowhere. Come see for yourself."

  As he talked, one of the marshals who had been behind the cabin came forward, prodding a young man ahead of him. The man showed a wound to his left shoulder.

  "Caught us one trying to run away," one of the marshals said. "Then he fired at me. Reckon we can charge him with attempted murder."

  Both men were herded out of the fence into the clearing and Spur and the marshals went up and checked on them.

  "Don't recognize either of them from wanted posters," Marshal West said. "You two got names?"

  One was Wilbur Halverson, the younger one Buff Halverson.

  The marshals all shook their heads.

  "Tell you what we're going to do, Wilbur. Since we don't have no paper on you two, we'll let you go. All you have to do is pay a five dollar fine for assault with a deadly weapon and we'll forget about the whole thing. Oh, we'll file a paper on you with the court so everyone will know about you two."

  "Can't fine us, Marshal. We didn't do nothing wrong."

  "Wilbur, just living over here in the Territories is wrong lessen' you're Indian. Don't look to me like you're much Indian with that blond hair."

  "Didn't do nothing wrong," Wilbur maintained.

  "Good enough. Take your choice. Five dollars now, or a ride for the next three weeks in our chariot out there on bread and water and then facing up to Judge Parker."

  Wilbur glowered, then dug into his pocket. He came up with a half eagle five dollar gold piece and tossed it to Marshal West.

  "Didn't do nothing wrong," Wilbur said.

  "At least you're still free."

  Wilbur nodded, hooked his thumbs in his belt and waited. "What about my shot boy?"

  West looked at the man who still bled from the shoulder.

  "Hell, Wilbur, you can patch him up. You've had worse. Couple of weeks he'll be out selling liquor to the Indians. Y'all be careful now."

  West signalled and the five other Marshals pulled back and headed for their horses.

  Spur and West rode back to the main track and the wagon.

  "That happen often?" Spur asked. "Fining people."

  "Now and again. Judge Parker said we can do it when we have a mind to. Good way to keep some of these misfits in line." West grinned. "Then too, since we don't get no salary, helps us deputies to make enough to keep body and soul together. Nobody gets rich being a U.S.Deputy Marshal in Indian Territory."

  Not rich, Spur decided, but they could make enough on a good day to salt some cash away. With the average lawman making about two dollars a day, it wouldn't take many fines for the deputy marshals to do better than that.

  Marshal West turned and whistled and John, the marshal with the full beard, rode up beside West.

  "Coming up on Half Breed Oliver. Ride ahead and check him out. If there's more than two horses in the pen, come back and tell us quick."

  The marshal rode off with a grin.

  "Half Breed Oliver?" Spur asked.

  "Yep. He's been living over here in the Territories for so long, he wouldn't know what the other side of the border looked like no more. Has a still somewhere that we ain't had the time to find. That'd get him five years no problem. Outside of that he does a little farming in the valley, runs some cattle and does some trading with the Cherokee."

  "Sounds like he's working hard at making a living.

  "He is. Better'n most you meet in the Territory. Half black, half Cherokee. Polite, soft spoken. Got a sweet little black wife and six or seven drops running around. Still, I'll put his ass in Judge Parker's courtroo
m ii (7n I can find his still."

  A half hour later, the bearded marshall, John, came riding back, the grin wider now.

  "Swear old Half Breed's having a damned party. Six extra horses in his corral. Been there a time. Horse turds all over the place."

  "Hear any yelling, loud talk?"

  "Nope, quiet, like they is sleeping or drunk or maybe playing poker."

  "Well go in as usual. You and James in back, rest of us out front. We can get to within thirtyfeet of this place in the brush."

  They dismounted as before and worked up on the little clearing. It had a clothes line, a log cabin well chinked and a stone fireplace out the top. Flowers grew around the front step. A lean-to held some hay next to the pole corral. Eight horses milled around there.

  To the side, Spur saw a vegetable garden with tomatoes ripe and he saw pole beans ready to pick.

  They worked up to the closest place to the front door and Marshal West's big voice boomed out.

  "Half Breed Oliver. Marshal West. We're back. Might as well come out peaceful and not get the children hurt. Bring your friends, too."

  A dead silence greeted his demands. He said it again and Oliver came out the front door, his hands in the air. Right behind him came another man with hat pulled low and his six-gun's muzzle pushed hard against Oliver's head. He had a saddlebag over one shoulder.

  "Back off, Marshal, or your man here is dead meat. Y' all hear me?"

  "Hear you, dumb bastard. You hurt Oliver or his family and you're the dead meat. You want that? We got ten marshals out here, all with seven shot Spencer repeating rifles. You go up against 70 shots with your five? Not smart."

  "I'm getting a horse and riding away with Oliver, or he's a dead man."

  "You giving up the others inside?"

  "Hell, they all skunk-drunk in there. Passed out and fucked out. You can have them. I get away and Oliver here don't get hurt. Deal?"

  "Let me check the inside. You the bank robbery guys from across the river?"

  "Yeah. Told the dumb bastards not to stop so close to the damn border."

  "You taking the money?" Spur asked.

  "Hell, we only got a thousand dollars. I'm taking what's left, yeah. Deal?"

  West stood up and walked into the open. "You give me the rest of them without a fight, it's a deal. Let me look inside."